Rankings come and go. Institutions rise, plateau, and slip. That is the nature of a competitive global landscape in which hundreds of universities vie for recognition across dozens of disciplines every year.
Which is what makes last month’s news so significant: for the tenth consecutive year, the University of Sussex, in partnership with the Institute of Development Studies, has been ranked number one in the world for Development Studies by QS. Not just a strong year; not just a good run - but a full decade at the summit of a field that sits at the heart of addressing the challenges defining our era. Challenges that also shape Sussex 2035: Creating Progressive Futures - flourishing, sustainability and progress for the whole world: inequality, climate change, humanitarian crisis, political fragility.
This does not happen by accident; more it reflects a sustained and deliberate commitment to scholarship that is genuinely world-leading, and a partnership with IDS that remains, I would argue, unmatched in UK higher education.
The relationship between the University of Sussex and IDS is not a branding exercise. It is an intellectual and institutional partnership between two organisations that share a campus, a mission, and a conviction that the role of academic research and teaching is to engage with the world, not merely to observe it. Students in the Faculty of Social Sciences work alongside researchers who influence government policy, advise regional and international intergovernmental and non-governmental organisations, and collaborate with social movements on every continent. That proximity between scholarship and practice is not incidental, it is the point.
Professor Geert De Neve, Head of the School of Global Studies, which sits at the core of this work within the Faculty, puts it well: "What makes the Sussex-IDS partnership genuinely distinctive is that it is not simply a collaboration between institutions - it is a shared intellectual project. Our students and researchers don't work at the edges of the world's most pressing problems; they work at the centre of them, alongside the people and organisations trying to solve them. A decade at number one reflects that depth of engagement, and it is something the whole School of Global Studies is immensely proud of."
Ten years at number one in the QS rankings is the external validation of our approach. It shows that our model works, under the scrutiny of a rigorous independent assessment process.
That evidence is especially significant now, as Sussex engages in a serious process of recovery and renewal. We have been open about the challenges we face - financial, structural, and reputational - and clear that rebuilding requires us to show - through credible, sustained recognition and reputation-building - that Sussex’s academic standing remains secure and continues to strengthen.
This is exactly what rankings of this kind provide. QS evaluates institutions on academic reputation, employer reputation and research impact. Being ranked first in the world for ten consecutive years in a field as competitive and contested as Development Studies sends a clear and compelling signal - to prospective students, research partners, funders and policymakers - that Sussex continues to be a university of genuine intellectual distinction, one that is actively engaged in creating progressive futures of flourishing, sustainability and progress for the whole world.
The Sussex-IDS partnership sits at the heart of our story. It reflects Sussex at its most distinctive: genuinely collaborative, intellectually rigorous and focused on research with real-world impact. It is not just something to celebrate - it is an approach we can learn from in many areas of our work.
As always, there is more to do, but this ranking is one piece of evidence of what we have to build on and serves as a reminder of what Sussex can achieve.